April - what I have done this month

[tracy]

An opportunity to share information about the work/tasks/activities done in your woodland during April

Can be exciting, interesting, laborious, tedious, relaxing, mundane, life enhancing, dangerous, controversial even spiritual etc.

The aim of this months thread is to give folk an idea of what owning a wood involves - glamourous, not so glamourous, big projects and small projects.

The item does not have to be original, bigger, better etc than any other forum entry.

Can be the same as other activities done in any other month.

[tracy]

Really really enjoying SPRING!

[Darren]

Made a shave horse yesterday. Charcoaling tomorrow, making mushroom logs for sale,, finishing off the rabbit fence and trapping the rabbits inside. BBQing rabbit..........

[The Barrowers]

Finished the last planting of Sweet Chestnut and Hazel to restock after clearing an acre of overstood Sweet Chestnut and Old Hazel.

Removed the last redundant 6 foot plus tall Deer Fencing lengths that did nothing except guide the deer to certain paths. This had been up for years. Anybody need it? It's in reasonable lengths in East Sussex.

Looked at lots of rain and our seasonal stream.

Saw Marsh Tit at our Camp at the feeders. Our resident speaking pheasant has returned for the second year, he can be nearly hand fed when he hasn't got his flighty missus with him.

[Henrietta]

Saw a grass snake in the woods on Saturday. The primroses and violets are looking beautiful at the moment. Wish I could say the same for the brambles. I am trying to make a track through and the brambles are a real problem. The ground is still very wet so was able to pull a few out and get a lot of root. Never mind, keep plodding on. I wish it was easier to photogragh butterfly's, I have no luck at all. Twice I saw a Brimstone being chased by a smaller dark coloured butterfly.

[MartreCycle]

First overnight camp out of the year at the wood last weekend -

what a confusing place to be - sun shining with temperature very warm,

trees - no leaves and barely a samll leaf out

that said - birds on song, singing -

kelly kettle perfomed fantastically well - and deck chair had plenty of use

managed to bury a two metre section of polypipe to replace a boggy ditch crossing

also hung up (rather late) a bird box

[adam]

We had our first trip to our woodland as its owners :-)

We didn't get to do too much ... checked our keys to the gate worked, got our 4x4 stuck on an access track, then patched up the access track with a couple of tonnes of gravel (not that 2 tonnes goes very far but its a start and all my trailer will take). We then had a rest while we enjoyed a lovely picnic, enjoyed a nice walk round the place discovering new features and collected a very small amount of dead wood from the floor as firewood leaving the vast majority of rotting fallen wood as a place for the bugs to live. Then finally we just sat in the woodland thinking about the TPO and what plans we needed to write up.

Adam.

[John H]

We travelled across on Easter thursday, got caught in a blizzard as we crossed the Radnor Forest.

When we arrived at the woods it was wet and cold and the mud had returned with a vengance. My wife hates the mud.

We soon got the caravan warm and aired the beds.The weather improved the next morning and continued to get warmer and by the end of the week were eating outside in our shirt sleeves.

We put shelters round the trees I had planted on my last visit, washed the caravan, milled some spruce and cut some logs. I put some stone in some of the pot holes in the green lane that leads to the woods.The lane has suffered from water continually flowing down it over the winter.Visited the neighbouring farmers.

John

[woodbodger]

With this lovely dry weather this week I have been able to get to grips with the scrub that I cut down last year in what was supposed to be an open clearing, it is getting closer to that now. Today I had a visit from a management planner. I have decided to go down the grant route, spurred on by this forum. I have had one other visit from a management planner who apart from wanting ,up front, £500 over and above the grant for working out a plan was not aware that nest boxes clearings and tracks could all be grant aided. My new agent seems more up to speed we had a good walk around the wood and he came up with sensible suggestions that I can see will improve things for future generations. I have started topping up the much decimated log store which is down to 1/4 full of dry logs, not bad since we have had the coldest winter since Nelson first cried "sacre bleu" as his pyramid of brass cannon balls rolled across his quarter deck ( the co-efficient of brass being that much greater than steel brass balls can shrink enough to cause them to roll off the tray {called a monkey} that holds them). Did I wander off there for a moment? Anyway the log shed is being refilled and I figure that as long as it is as full as it was last year I should be okay.

[The Barrowers]

Hello

What is a "Management Planner" is it the same as a % shark or chugger (a non profit making charity worker who is paid on a %)?